>The Albanians, turns out, rose against Turks much more than Serbs and no one suggests that Turks or anyone really conqured them
If that was the case, how come Albania was mostly Moslem? The Turks, among others, did indeed subjugate Albania, or at least parts of it for a long time. Look at the Romans, the Byzantines, the Normans, the Venetians, the Italians. Also, as far as the Turks went, ever hear of Arnauts? They were Albanian Moslem troops who often did the Sublime Porte’s dirty work in the Balkans. As for the Serbs, yes quite a few did collaborate with the Turks, but others didn’t. Look at the Haiduks. My point is just that few, if any, nations in the Balkans during Turkish occupation had a monopoly on resistance or collaboration.
Most Albanians were mercenaries, in search of making a living for the 450 years Turkey occupied them. They fought for Naples, Spain, Turkey, Russia, (even) Serbia and few hundred of them took over Egypt and held it for 150 years.
The point was that you have to do what you have to do, you have to fight for them, pay taxes, and many princes were split in different directions. For example, the Albanians were sent to crush the Greek Independence started by Albanians (Suli tribe.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souliotes Even, in 1389, I read that Serbs and Albanians were on both sides of the battle, some for the Christians, some for Ottomans.
I objected to the Serb POV that “we resisted the Turks, held back the hordes, no one else did,” thus we deserve Kosovo nonsense. See Romania, Bulgaria and Albania in 1400’s. If this was the reasoning, Serbia should be split among the above three nations. “Dracula,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg actually won quite a few decisive battles against Turkey but ultimately lost.
As far as faith, Albanians do not really care much about it, so many switched faith but maintained guns, and a semi-independence. A trade-off without sacrificing much. You can always, formally, get the faith back and it does not appear to have made a difference in how they behaved. http://www.peacelink.nu/Boker/Durham/Durham_III.html if say you’re a
Turkey, IIRC, did not kill people for not converting. I have to find this story but it said that they paid no taxes and when they fought it was as highly paid soldiers, not serfs forced to fight. They way I read is that while occupied, Turkey let them rule their own way. read this:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01253b.htm (written in 1900 so it’s dated. ‘Turk’ = Muslim faith)
Edith Durham states the same way, mentioning that they cannot be assimilated /really subdued.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E7DF1131E233A25751C0A9619C946096D6CF
Looks like the Turks didn’t push too far, and when they did they found trouble and it was not worth unleashing the entire empire on them. Like many tribes in Montengro it appears that the North was never touched by Turks, until 1911 when Turks lost there. This site, that I cannot vouch for otherwise, has NYT clips from that time: http://www.albanianfront.com/press-news/?p=27